EXCLUSIVE: It looks as if there will be a change of leadership as action series Strike Back heads into its new season (the fourth for Sky1 and the third for Cinemax). My sources are telling me that Co-Executive Producer Tony Saint will not be returning to the Left Bank Pictures produced series, which just recently entered production in South Africa. Saint had been with the show since the second season (its first on Cinemax) and after serving as a member of the writing team, he was elevated to co-executive producer/lead writer/show-runner for the most recent season. I hear that Saint’s position on the series is being filled by Michael J. Basset, James Dormer and Tim Vaughan. Word is that Basset is serving as the fifth member of the show’s writing team alongside Simon Burke, John Simpson, James Dormer and Richard Zajdlic, whilst also serving as lead director, co-executive producer and co-showrunner. The series has something of a history of shaking things up with its show-runners since Cinemax came on-board with season 2. The writing team on the ten episode second season was led by co-showrunners Frank Spotnitz and Dan Percival, with Tony Saint taking over in season 3.

I hear that Tony Saint’s departure was an entirely amicable one and was Saint’s decision as he would be unable to give his full attention to Strike Back as he is deep in development on a new drama series for the BBC. My sources tell me that this project, created by Saint, is titled The Interceptor and is based on the memoir of the same name by former UK customs officer/SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency) agent Cameron Addicott. One insider has described the project as a “high octane police drama.” I hear that BBC Drama Production is producing and that the series, which has been given an order for eight scripts, is being developed for BBC One.

Cameron Addicott had a long and distinguished career as an officer for HM Customs and then the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). He retired from SOCA in 2008 and started working on his memoirs. Penguin published the first part of Addicott’s memoirs in 2010, titled The Interceptor, which told the story of his time as a member of the Alpha Projects Unit, a group of dedicated undercover Customs officers who hunted the UK’s most dangerous criminals by extraordinary means. Those means included the interception of phone calls. From there Cameron and his colleagues would use the intelligence to prevent these serious criminals from doing harm. Such operations included the prevention of murders, stopping large shipments of drugs and other illicit activities connected to organised crime.

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